Flowers on a black background

Hello, crafting friends!

Welcome back to CAS Colours & Sketches where Julie has come up with another great sketch for us!

Those triangles can be any shape so I chose some long-stemmed flowers for my card. You may have noticed that I've swerved away from my beloved white space too but there's lots of black space instead. 'White' space can be any colour and you can see that there's plenty of clean space on this design.

I stamped two of the flowers from In The Meadow by Funky Fossil in white craft ink on a black card panel. Once the ink was dry, I used coloured pencils to bring the flowers to life. When I was happy with the result, I added a sentiment from Uniko's Hello Lovely. It was stamped with versamark ink and heat embossed in white which really stands out against the black card stock.

To finish, the card panel was trimmed down with my favourite stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and attached to a black card base with dimensional pads.

Fancy some more inspiration? Hop over to the CAS Colours and Sketches blog where my team mates, and this month's guest Valérie, have some gorgeous sample to show you. When you're ready to show us your card, you can link up there too. Don't forget to keep your creation nice and CAS with plenty of clean space!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with We Love Chocolate Baroque where the theme is Flowers/Butterflies/Birds; I'm also joining in with As You Like It where the question is Which Stamps Do You Prefer? (Digi, Rubber or Clear.) I've show-cased my favourite stamps, which are clear. I like them because they don't take up much space and I like seeing where yI'm stamping! Rubber stamps are great for really detailed images though. I don't currently have a printer (!) so digis are off the menu, but they aren't so good for a lot of the techniques I like - spritzing, embossing, partial stamping etc.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

There are a pair of busy little blackbirds in my garden, building a nest and I'm enjoying watching them. I have tried photographing them but they're too fast for me. Eva is a little indignant about them - she feels it's HER garden! I've saved some of the fur that ends up in the brush when I groom her and have put some out for them. Last year, at the end of the season, I found lots of nests in the hedges with bits of blonde fur in them!

Sending hugs,

The illusion of layers

Hello, crafting friends!

I do love the challenge of a one layer card and am always trying to think up ways to add depth to them. Today I got my coloured pencils out to see what I could do with those.

To start, I masked off the left hand side and the bottom of a good thick card base. Using grey ink, I stamped the beautiful flower cluster from Uniko's Hello Lovely stamp set - I was lucky enough to win this set last year and just love it! With a variety of mauve and purple pencils, I used the cross hatching technique to build up a background, intensifying the colour closest to the flowers.

To colour my flowers, I used small round strokes of the pencils, layering up the colours and trying to leave paler areas where the petals might catch the light. To give the impression of looking in through an aperture, I drew a solid line at the left and bottom of my image.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said, stamped in Stazon black ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Stamping it across the white part of the card and the 'aperture' helps to give the illusion of depth.

CHALLENGES

I'm entering this card in the Uniko 9th Birthday party celebrations where the challenge is to make a birthday card; talking of birthday celebrations, the Less is More birthday party continues with One Layer Week and a theme of Flowers; I'm also joining in with The Rainbow Card Challenge, where the colour prompt this month is Mostly Mauve. Addicted to Stamps and More are having an Any Occasion challenge this fortnight, so I'm also linking up there; I shall also link up at The Flower Challenge as this stamp is certainly one of the last floral stamps to enter my collection! (Probably could do with some more...!)

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I know lots of us crafters have struggled with a loss of mojo - I know I did last year. There was time to craft, and all this wonderful stuff to craft with, but I just felt this horrible lethargy that made me miserable. I don't know what changed but suddenly I'm now crafting like a maniac with one idea after the other chasing through my head and not enough time to put them all into action! I only mention this to give you hope that these things can pass.

The other thing is that although Eva (at 40 kilos) is not the kind of dog you pick up and tuck under your arm, I did have a laugh at this when I saw it on Pinterest!

Source: Pinterest

Sending hugs,

Happy flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

It's time for another great challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches! Jeanne is hosting all the challenges this month and has come up with a gorgeous bright colour palette this week that will definitely chase the winter blues away!

Isn't that a cheerful combination?! And since I'm fed up with winter alreadyy (unless it's prepared to turn bright and frosty!) I've gone all out with this exuberant cluster of flowers from Uniko's Hello Lovely stamp set.

It's a large stamp so I was able to stamp it off the top of my card panel where it forms a pretty shape. I cut out the centre of the panel with a stitched label die from The Works, then put it back into the panel. 

Once the panel was attached to the card base, I added a sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks which was stamped, heat embossed with clear embossing powder and then snipped out.

So now it's your turn! Let our colours cheer you up this week :) Click here for a whole bunch of inspiration from my talented teamies as well as our fabulous guest designer Karen,  and to link up your card.

CHALLENGES

I was lucky enough to win the Hello Lovely stamp set and it's getting its first outing today, so I'm linking this card up with Allsorts where the challenge is Something New. I'm also sharing at NBUS, the place to link up your cards using Never Before Used Schtuff. This gorgeous floral stamp has definitely taken its place in my top five so I'm also joining in with Stamping Sensations where the challenge is Favourite Stamps! 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have realised that Eva is very, very good at engineering little routines to brighten her day. Somehow it has become expected when we return from her little walk last thing for her to take my hat off for me. It's a little woolly hat and when I bend towards her she gently takes it off for me. She hangs onto the hat until I give her a little treat and then she's ready for bed. I have been thinking about how this state of affairs happened and I am completely at a loss. She is an expert, that's all I can say!

Sending hugs,